Trump has done an atrocious job of telling the truth during the campaign so far

U.S.
presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a press
availability after signing a pledge with the RNC at Trump Tower
in Manhattan, New York.Thomson
Reuters

Real-estate mogul Donald Trump
has done a poor job so far of keeping to the facts during his
current presidential campaign.

According to PolitiFact, the non-partisan fact-checking
organization run by the Tampa Bay Times,
approximately 76 percent of Trump’s statements are mostly false,
false, or “pants on fire”—as false as it gets.

The remaining 24 percent are either half true or mostly true.
None of the Republican candidate’s investigated statements were
judged to be explicitly true.

During his presidential announcement, Trump stated that
the US's gross domestic product during the previous quarter was
below zero, adding that “It's never below zero.”

One can assume that Trump meant to say that growth
in GDP for Q1 2015 was below zero, which it was at -0.7 percent.
However, his statement that it was unprecedented was completely
wrong.

By PolitiFact’s
count, the US has seen
negative GDP growth over a quarter period 42 times. This makes up
15 percent of the quarters since the government began calculating
quarterly GDP change in 1947.

Similarly, Trump’s
statement to ABC in early August that, under Obama, income
and unemployment for black Americans were worse than “just about
ever”did not pass
muster. Unemployment
has dropped significantly under the current administration and,
while household median income for the same group has stagnated
during Obama’s presidency, it is hardly historically low.

Of course, Trump is not the only candidate whose words have been
under scrutiny. Ted Cruz’s statements were found to be 66 percent
mostly false, false, or “pants on fire.” The only one of his
statements deemed explicitly true was from 2013, when he said
that the federal government thinks it
has the right to regulate toilet seats.

The major Democratic candidates have had a better time with the
fact-checkers. Hillary Clinton chalks in at 30 percent in
the false categories, just edging out Republican Jeb Bush's 33
percent. In one instance, Clinton got caught up in claims
that
all of her grandparents immigrated to the United
States (in reality, only one did). Bernie Sanders comes
in very low with only 26 percent of his statements in the
false categories.

Trump's tendency to stretch the truth has not been limited to
politics. In court depositions obtained by The New York Times,
Trump was shown to have repeatedly exaggerated
about his finances and even his debt. When asked, under
oath, if he had ever exaggerated in statements about his
properties, he said, “I think everyone
does.”